Highs and lows While Delta job is 'highlight' of his career, Swissair crash was sobering moment for Leo F. Mullin

Published: Sunday, November 01, 1998

ATLANTA (AP) For the better part of an hour, Leo F. Mullin has been describing his first year as chief executive officer of Delta Air Lines with almost-boyish enthusiasm.

Hands wave and point in emphasis as this bookish-looking 55-year-old boss explains what he's done since leaving the utility company Unicom Corp. and joining the airline in August 1997. At times, he stammers as his mouth struggles to keep up with the torrent of thought.

''The whole year has been a career highlight for me,'' he exults, leaning across a conference table. ''This has been the best year of my business life!''

But the effervescence fades as Mullin describes the event that all his years in other industries could not fully prepare him for the Sept. 2 crash of a Swissair flight with which Delta had a code-share agreement.

He expresses pride in Delta's response, the unhesitant treatment of the crash as if it had been Delta's own plane that fell off Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people aboard.

He recalls the memorial services.

''And boy, I talked to those passenger families ... We had a (Delta) flight attendant on there, Patricia Eberhart, and I read her file several times. She was a wonderful person, she had great involvement with the community. She lived with her mother, and I talked with her mother ...''

Mullin stares down into his coffee cup and pauses. When he looks up, his eyes have reddened.

''Uh ... it just drives it home,'' he says.

''It can be an intellectual experience when you go through the practices, but when you see all of the human aspects of what this tragedy represents ... it causes you to wake up every day and worry about safety first.''

The telephone call that awakened Mullin with news of the crash was his most searing moment at Delta. But there have been other notable, sometimes bumpy, times for the 69-year-old carrier during his tenure:

n Delta recorded its first billion-dollar profit for the fiscal year ended June 30, and its stock hit a record high of $143 per share.

n There was an ardent effort to take over Continental Airlines, which spurned Delta for an alliance with Northwest Airlines.

n A sweeping strategic alliance with United Airlines also got undercut when Delta pilots balked while seeking a board of directors seat that Delta refused. The two airlines settled for a frequent-flier partnership.

n There were signs of progress on the crucial issue of customer satisfaction Delta moved from last to fourth within a year in major airline on-time performance, and also improved its ratings on baggage handling.

n Delta's leadership team was reshaped, with four of Mullin's top six executives brought in from outside the company two, like Mullin, from outside the airline industry.

The Delta board's decision to oust Ronald W. Allen and bring in Mullin as the first non-Delta CEO in company history followed a decade in which money-losing expansion was followed by sharp cost-cutting.

Sidney Harris, dean of the Georgia State University College of Business Administration, says such a decision probably reflected the directors' feeling ''they wanted to shift direction, bringing in a different management style or approach.''

On the line for Delta, he noted, was its core value of high-quality customer service which it seemed to be losing along with employee morale.

Mullin recalls the situation as one of low morale, ''shabby'' physical conditions of most planes, and a troubling image of declining customer service.

''A lot had been lost here that impacted the soul of the place,'' Mullin says.